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Summary of previous episodes: Donovan moves from the still raw acoustic folk of "What's Bin Did And What's Bin Hid" to the more mature and personal "Fairytale", then the decisive leap: "Sunshine Superman", an album steeped in an almost mystical and ancient aura, as demonstrated by tracks like "Ferris Wheel", "Three King Fishers", "Guinevre" and above all the regal "Legend Of A Girl Child Linda", without neglecting a bit of vaguely Kinks-like pop rock with the title track, more straightforward and fun psychedelia with "The Trip", reaching hard rock shores with "Season Of The Witch". In short, a great explosion of creativity just waiting to be channeled onto a precise track to be reused in an even more efficient and unified manner: this is what happens with the next album: "Mellow Yellow" from 1967, another great masterpiece for Donovan, another masterful demonstration of style, perhaps the definitive consecration for this versatile artist, chameleon-like; a brilliant anti-diva of music, a great lyricist and great shaper of melodies in equal measure.
"Mellow Yellow" is an enticing cocktail of pop, folk, and psychedelia in equal parts, with a touch of jazz, sumptuous and refined arrangements, surreal, almost Dadaist lyrics; it is an even more surprising and original album than its predecessor, with a more pronounced and, so to speak, more eccentric personality; as demonstrated by its famous title track, which is the clearest example of the innovations introduced with this album in Donovan's stylistic range: a trippy melody tinged with jazzy atmospheres and accompanied by a lopsided rhythm, with ambiguous lyrics that marry well with a subtle and insinuating singing style, elements that are also picked up in the sardonic "The Observation", punctuated by a limping bass line and surrounded by brass and pianos, and in softer form in "Bleak City Woman", in which a delightful loungy romanticism emerges, like a crooner on acid, always with that formidable thin and lascivious voice, and finally in the psychedelic pop of "Museum", visionary and suggestive.
In "Mellow Yellow" there are no shortage of episodes that hark back to more folk sounds, such as the acoustic "House Of Jansch", aligning with the subtle irony that characterizes the album, or "Writer In The Sun" which stands apart, evoking with its delicacy and soft, dreamy flute interludes more relaxed and dream-like atmospheres, paving the way for the style of the next album, "A Gift From A Flower To A Garden". The majestic "Hampstead Incident", accompanied by nocturnal orchestrations and a mournful music box, is the dark side of "Legend Of A Girl Child Linda", echoing its vestiges but evoking less fairy-tale-like, more tormented and crepuscular, almost gothic landscapes and forms a masterful and unrepeatable trio of "haunting ballads" along with "Sand And Foam" which by contrast appears irradiated by an overly intense and distorting sunlight, transforming the Mexican landscape into a parallel and unknown world, full of lysergic suggestions and the cathartic "Young Girl Blues", a surprisingly sparse song, accompanied only by the arpeggios of acoustic guitar; the singing resonates from afar, echoing, disorienting, yet somehow participatory, suffering, not cold, and paints a decadent and alienating female portrait trapped in a cage of loneliness, depression, unfulfilled sexual desires; a style that seems to almost anticipate that of artists like the early David Bowie or Lou Reed.
"Mellow Yellow" is an album that, despite being steeped in psychedelia, has little to do with the colors and optimism of flower power that will characterize the subsequent albums, particularly "A Gift From A Flower To A Garden" and "Barabajagal", beneath its apparent glimmer of colored harmonies hides a soul at times almost sarcastic and at times tormented and introspective, if we dare to make a comparison with the "rival" Bob Dylan "Mellow Yellow" can be likened to "Blonde On Blonde" for the role that both play in their respective discographies; they are visionary albums and expressions of full maturity and maximum inspiration for the respective artists, but returning to Donovan it is impossible not to notice how "Mellow Yellow", with its infinite stream of images, allusions, metaphors, more or less unreal landscapes and its perfectly studied sounds and harmonically arranged is an extraordinarily intense and fascinating album, an exotic and mesmerizing charm, arising from perfect alchemy, such as to make this album the Philosopher's Stone of Philip Donovan Leitch, who will continue to produce great albums but never as close in atmosphere and suggestion to this and always at a certain, more or less great but nevertheless insurmountable qualitative distance.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Mellow Yellow (03:50)
I'm just mad about Saffron.
A-Saffron's mad about me.
I'm-a just mad about Saffron.
She's just mad about me.
They call me Mellow Yellow,
Quite rightly.
They call me Mellow Yellow,
Quite rightly.
They call me Mellow Yellow.
I'm just mad about Frontine.
Frontine's mad about me.
I'm-a just mad about-a Frontine.
She's just mad about me.
They call me Mellow Yellow.
They call me Mellow Yellow,
Quite rightly.
They call me Mellow Yellow.
Born-a high forever to fly.
Wind-a velocity nil.
Born-a high forever to fly.
If you want your cup, I will fill.
They call me Mellow Yellow,
Quite rightly.
They call me Mellow Yellow,
Quite rightly.
They call me Mellow Yellow.
So mellow yellow..
Electrical banana
Is gonna be a sudden craze.
Electrical banana
Is bound to be the very next phase.
They call it Mellow Yellow,
Quite rightly.
They call me Mellow Yellow,
Quite rightly.
They call me Mellow Yellow.
Saffron, yeah.
I'm just-a mad about her.
I'm-a just-a mad about-a Saffron.
She's just mad about me.
They call me Mellow Yellow,
Quite rightly.
They call me Mellow Yellow,
Quite rightly.
They call me Mellow Yellow.
Oh, so yellow..
Oh, so mellow..
03 Sand and Foam (03:21)
From the album mellow yellow
The sun was going down behind a tattooed tree
And the simple act of an oar's stroke put diamonds in the sea
And all because of the phosphorus there in quantity
As I dug you diggin' me in Mexico.
There in the valley of Scorpio, beneath the cross of jade
Smoking on the seashell pipe the gypsies had made
We sat and we dreamed a while of smugglers bringing wine
In that crystal thought time in Mexico.
Sitting in a chair of bamboo, sipping grenadine,
Straining my eyes for a surfacing submarine.
Kingdoms of ants walk across my feet,
I'm a-shakin' in my seat in Mexico.
Grasshoppers creaking in the velvet jungle night,
Microscopic circles in the fluid of my sight,
Watching a black-eyed native girl cut and trim the lamp,
Valentino vamp in Mexico.
The sun was going down behind a tattooed tree
And the simple act of an oar's stroke put diamonds in the sea
And all because of the phosphorus there in quantity
I dug you diggin' me in Mexico.
04 The Observation (02:25)
From the album mellow yellow
On the sidewalk the people are hustling and bustling,
They ain't got no time so they think on the thing
That will fill in the space in between birth and death.
Who're they kidding ?
On the TV the people are mumbling and grumbling,
They ain't got no hope so they give out the news
That the world's got the blues, S.O.S. S.O.S.
Bless my soul.
In the movies the people are identifying
They ain't got no season to split for no reason
And so they get by on the great community lie.
On the sidewalk the people are hustling and bustling,
They ain't got no time so they think on the thing
That will fill in the space in between birth and death.
Who're they kidding ?
Who're they kidding ?
05 Bleak City Woman (02:26)
From the album love is only feeling
She came with her blue jeans on
Wanting to star in a song.
Get you with your ins and outs of it,
You're coming on strong, so strong
I'll tell you what I'm gonna do,
I'm gonna make love to you.
She lifted my spirits high,
I noticed the dream in her eye.
Softly I entered her garden
Parting her veil with a sigh.
I'll tell you what I'm gonna do,
I'm going to give my love to you.
I tidied up my last affair,
I lost so much I don't care
Felt like a fool in a foolery,
But I'm well on my way to repair.
I know you ain't no hanger on,
Baby, you can star in a song.
I took a look inside her head,
I saw a Victorian bed.
I took her to the fair green country,
I'm so weary of the life I've led
I'll tell you what we're gonna do,
We're gonna live and love so true.
06 House of Jansch (02:45)
From the album mellow yellow
Girl ain't nothing but a willow tree
Swaying in a summer breeze,
You'll never change what has to be.
Girl ain't nothing but a willow tree.
Sometimes I don't know what I said till I did,
I want to be the father of your kid.
Dragonfly he sleeps till dawn,
I knew I'd be here when love has gone.
Crystal ball is what I wish for you,
Get it straight, I love the both of you.
Someone's goin' through a cold turkey.
Girl ain't nothing but a willow tree.
I give your baby a contact high
I love another is what I sigh -ha-
Looks like rain, I do declare,
Your baby wants to take my chocolate eclair.
I couldn't cry, I could not laugh,
Incident about a silken scarf.
I know what a jealous trip can be.
Girl ain't nothing but a willow tree.
Girl ain't nothing but a willow tree
Swaying in a summer breeze,
You'll never change what has to be,
Girl ain't nothing but a willow tree.
Weep for me, willow tree,
Weep for me, willow tree.
07 Young Girl Blues (03:47)
A Saturday night
It feels like a Sunday in some ways
If you had any sense
You'd maybe go ‘way for a few days
Be that as it may
You can't only say you were lonely
You are but a young girl
Working your way thru the phoneys
Café on, milk gone
Such a sad light unfading
Yourself you touch
But not too much
You hear it's degrading
The flowers on your stockings
Wilting away in the midnight
The book you are reading
Is one man’s opinion of moonlight
Your skin is so white
You’d like maybe to go to bed soon
Just closing your eyes
If you're to rise up before noon
High heels, car wheels
All the losers are groovin'
Your dream, strange scene
Images are movin’
Your friends they are all making
A pop star or two every evening
And you know that scene backwards,
They can't see the patterns they're weaving
Your friends they’re all models
But you soon got over that one
You sit in your one room
A little brought down in London
Café on, milk gone
Such a sad light unfading
Yourself you touch
But not too much
You’ve heard it's degrading
A Saturday night
It feels like a Sunday in some ways
If you had any sense
You'd maybe go ‘way for a few days
Be that as it may
You can't only say you were lonely
You are but a young girl
And you’re working your way thru the phoneys
08 Museum (02:56)
From the album mellow yellow
I drink sweet wine for breakfast, I slept about an hour or so
Smiled a little in the silence deciding on where to go.
"Meet me under the whale in the Natural History Museum,"
I think that's what she said, a little bit sad about having to leave them.
Yawning in the sun, like a child I run.
But don't do it if you don't want to, I wouldn't do a thing like that.
No, don't it if you don't want to, I wouldn't do a thing like that.
How little do you speak of beauty, isn't it a shame, what ho
Maybe you should go get a power ring, you'd make all your troubles go.
There she stood in drag, just-a lookin' cool in astrakhan.
She's lookin' just a little wiped out, she said I looked like Peter Pan.
Yawning in the sun, oh baby, like a child I run.
But don't do it if you don't want to,
I wouldn't do a thing like that.
Oh no, no, don't do it if you don't want to,
I wouldn't do a thing like that.
Don't do it.
09 Hampstead Incident (04:43)
From the album mellow yellow
Standing by the Everyman, digging the rigging on my sail
Rain fell to sounds of harpsichords, to the spell of fairy tale.
The heath was hung in magic mists, enchanted dripping glades,
I'll taste a taste until my mind drifts from this scene and fades
In the night time.
Crystals sparkle in the grass, I polish them with thought
On my lash there in my eye a star of light is caught.
Fortunes told in grains of sand, here I am is all I know
Candy stuck in children's hair, everywhere I go
In the night time,
In the night time.
Gypsy is the clown of love, I paint his face a smile
Anyone we ever make we always make in style. Yeah!
Yeah, strange young girls with radar screenings, yeah,
And hands as quick as hate
I won't just now, later on maybe and even then I'll wait
In the night time,
In the night time.
Standing by the Everyman, digging the rigging on my sail
Rain fell to sounds of harpsichords, to the spell of fairy tale.
The heath was hung in magic mists, enchanted dripping glades,
I'll taste a taste until my mind drifts from this scene and fades
In the night time.
In the night time.
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